Chris Webb

Yesterday, Brandon Badger, Product Manager for Google Earth announced the addition of a new Google Books Search layer.

Did you ever wonder what Lewis and Clark said about your hometown as they passed through? What about if any other historical figures wrote about your part of the world? Earlier this year, we announced a first step toward geomapping the world’s literary information by starting to integrate information from Google Book Search into Google Maps. Today, the Google Book Search and Google Earth teams are excited to announce the next step: a new layer in Earth that allows you to explore locations through the lens of the world’s books.

I think geomapping books is a great idea, and I can see tremendous potential for some amazing applications. However, I think there are some better examples of melding books with maps. For instance take a look at our Frommer’s Interactive Maps – which happen to leverage the Google Maps API. Orlando, Florida is a nice example where you will find markers for local attractions, hotels, restaurants and shopping among others. Each marker is linked to Frommer’s book content – directions, reviews, pricing information and so on. Clicking through gets you a detailed review, links to the attraction, hours of operation and of course, an opportunity to purchase the Frommer’s guide from which the content is pulled. Not quite as many bells and whistles as the Google Earth app, but very functional.

When searching Orlando, FL from the new Google Earth Books Search layer, I also get a selection of books from which to choose. However, since the geomapping seems to be machine-driven, you get a lot of false entries. Here I was offered The Plays of Shakespeare, with references to Orlando – a character in As you Like it.

This looks to be a great idea, with some problems in implementation. I’ll bet with time, Google will turn this into something very useful – especially if they open up with a geomapping API we can use to build Google Earth-based applications with our own content.